text: A similar-looking kind of damage is called false brinelling and is caused by fretting wear. Fretting wear occurs when localized wear-marks develop in evenly spaced patterns, with raised or unworn portions in between, like frets on a guitar. False brinelling occurs in two types: stationary and by precession. 
  Stationary false-brinelling occurs without any rotational motion in the bearing. This occurs when contacting bodies vibrate against each other in the presence of very small loads, which pushes lubricant out of the contact surface area, all while the bearing assembly cannot move far enough (or rotate far enough) to redistribute the displaced lubricant.  The result is a finely polished surface that resembles a brinell mark, but has not permanently deformed either contacting surface. This type of false brinelling usually occurs in bearings during transportation, between the time of manufacture and installation. The polished surfaces are often mistaken for brinelling, although no actual damage to the bearing exists. The false brinelling will disappear after a short break-in period of operation.
  Fretting wear can also occur during operation, causing deep indentations. This occurs when small vibrations form in the rotating shaft and become harmonically in sync with the speed of rotation, causing circular oscillations in the shaft. The oscillation causes the shaft to move in precession, and the timing of the rotation speed causes the balls or rollers to contact the races only when they are in similar positions. This forms wear marks caused by contact with the bearings and the races in specific areas, but not in others, leaving an uneven wear-pattern that can become quite deep before failure occurs, resembling brinelling. However, the marks are usually too wide, due to the motion of the bearing, and do not exactly match the shape of the rolling elements, and therefore this type of wear can be differentiated from true brinelling.